These are a Few of My Favorite Things…

It’s been a whole year since my 1st Annual Favorite Things Post! Can you even freaking believe how time flies? Can you even freaking believe I remembered to write a 2nd Annual Favorite Things Post?? I know. Me either. Yet, here it is…

Oprah has not called me to compare favorite things (No worries, Opes. I know you’re busy.) and no one is begging me to feature their products on my fantastically (not really) popular blog, but who freaking cares? I’ve started a tradition, and dammit, Ima keep it going! Here are my favorites for 2014, all of which kick schnitzel with noodles’ ass (whatever that is)…

Favorite Thing #1

The Singer 160 Limited Edition sewing machine is freaking gorgeous. Even if you don’t sew, you have to appreciate how pretty this machine is. I almost feel bad showing it to you (I know you will almost surely want one of your own) because it’s been discontinued (that’s what limited edition means…), but it is one of my favorite things, so hem’s the breaks. Sew sad… (haha see what I did there?)

Favorite Thing #3

(OMG! Can you believe the mid season finale!? I didn’t see that coming at all. When Daryl cries, I cry…) If you don’t watch this show, then you are missing out! Don’t tell me you don’t like zombies. It’s not really about the zombies. It’s about what to do if when the zombies show up. You don’t want to be unprepared for that inevitability…

Favorite Thing #4

Chris is my new celebrity crush. He’s the perfect ratio of hot to nerd. (In case you’re wondering, that’s 3:2.) Don’t know who he is? This Rolling Stone interview with him will catch you up. Anyway, I’ve never met Chris, but I know deep in my soul that he and I would be awesome together. He’s smart, sexy, and witty. (Obviously, we have a ton in common.) We also share a mutual love of Star Wars which would overshadow any incompatibility issues we may encounter. Relationships based on Star Wars always endure. True story.

Favorite Thing #5

This was my favorite movie of 2014. You might think you need to love cooking in order to appreciate a movie called Chef, but I don’t even have a kitchen, let alone cook, so that’s just nonsense. Jon Favreau wrote, produced, directed, and starred in Chef and he was brilliant. Previously, I had mostly known Jon as Monica Geller’s millionaire boyfriend, Pete Becker, (who she might have married if not for his desire to conquer the physical world…) but after seeing this movie, I looked him up and he’s kind of a big deal. (He produced and directed Iron Man! Who knew?) See Chef on Netflix (one of last years favorite things) starting January 28th, 2015.

*Bonus! My not boyfriend (Who? Chris Hardwick! I just told you about him!) recorded an awesome chat with Jon Favreau for his Nerdist Podcast. Listen here.

Favorite Thing #6

One of my all time favorite sitcoms is Friends. I’ve seen every episode so many times, I talk about the gang as if they’re real people that I know (as demonstrated in Favorite Thing #5), so when I stumbled across this image online, I knew I had to have it! I tracked down the artist to his Etsy shop. If you’re a TV addict like me, then you will love this guy’s work. He draws the floor plans from your favorite shows by watching dozens of episodes to gather clues as to what goes where. This was the first piece of art that I’ve ever commissioned and I am beyond thrilled at how it turned out. (The image above is not my actual piece. I haven’t framed mine yet and I don’t want to be taking it out of the box unnecessarily. I will show it to you in a future post for sure. It came out awesome!)

Favorite Thing #7

I took a vacation this year. God knows I needed it. And hell, I deserved it too! I’ve been slaving away (okay, maybe more like working at a moderately lazy pace, but still working…) at my crappy house for over 3 years, so I decided that I would trade in a week of this bitter cold New York November for… a bitter cold Florida one. Seriously. It was like 40 degrees down there. I had to wear my winter coat! But no matter. I went to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios to geek out and geek out I did. Without getting into the particulars of this amazing park (there are particulars all over the web), Universal spared no expense in bringing the books and movies to life. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter, you simply must go! (I wrote that last part in my best British accent.)

Favorite Thing #8

On the flight home from Florida, I passed some time perusing SkyMall. Always entertaining, but I had never ordered anything from them. Until now! How awesome are these pajamas?? Modeled by the invisible woman, (Like I would ever put a picture of myself in Batgirl pajamas on the internet…) they’re actually really well made. And they make me look like I have boobs. And ripped abs. What’s not to like?

Favorite Thing #9

And speaking of germy airplanes… Usually I’m all for things that make life easier, but, as lazy as I am, I resisted self-foaming hand wash for a long time. I can foam my own damned soap! I’d say. But, the truth is, that squirt of regular hand soap usually slides off of my wet hands and down the drain before I can commence with the foaming, so I finally caved. This one is my favorite because the bottle looks OK in my bathroom. And it also works well too, so there’s that.

Favorite Thing #10

OK, so yeah. Egor was on last year’s list. But he’s going to be on every year’s list, so you might as well just get used to that. If you have a cat, then you know. And if you don’t have a cat, you really should get one. And then you’ll know. (Unless you’re allergic. Then you should not get one. But then you won’t know. Sucks for you…)

I’m hoping 2015 will be a big year at my crappy house. I have a lot of projects planned and, finances permitting, some of them will be big. Maybe not kitchen big, but definitely floor big. You don’t want to miss any of that, so do us both a favor and subscribe below to be notified when I post something new. (Which is not terribly often, so it’s not like I’ll be junking up your inbox or anything…)

16 Responses to These are a Few of My Favorite Things…

Love the FRIENDS floorplan! But the closet with the question mark? That was Monica’s secret
junky, messed up closet! Remember that episode? One of the best. I can (and do) watch reruns several times a week

Love your kitty too! Looking forward to many more cool posts in the coming year-

Isn’t it fantastic? I totally remember that episode! And the artist does as well. This was his reply on a message board to someone who brought up that exact issue: “I saw that episode and I know perfectly well what was in that room. It was very ugly to draw something messy like a dump, the effect not was good. I opted to put a “?” that represented the mystery, the interrogation of that episode.” So it was artistic license

Being a “Friend’s Lover” and quoting every line was one of the first things we found out that we had in common, Miss V. The recliners at J&C’s are the only thing “off” in his pic – – but who am I to correct an artist and his vision. Happy New Year to you. Oh, I love the snow in this post. See, we do pay attention to the things you do.

Yeah, the chairs were more directly in front of the tv for the episodes that featured them, but I think they were off to the side in others. There was also a closet in Rachel’s room at one point because she was cleaning it out the day she moved, but it was gone in others. There are a lot of inconsistencies in the show. This artist chooses the best / most common layouts for his plans. Wait until you see it in person!

Dear ‘Crap’
U make me laugh!!
CHEF was great movie…. but I know u would appreciate BAD WORDS…
Do u have a Southeastern Salvage close by? Great:
rugs, reno supplies, tile, furniture. Ya would ewwww and ahhh in this store and save a lotta $$$$.
Happy New Year!!

I also loooooove Friends, I have all seasons on dvd. I took the quiz, got 62/75 right (I’m terrible with names), but what really cracked me up was the question “Why is Ross suspended from his job at the museum?” to which I just wrote “sandwich” and it approved my answer. Maybe I need to watch the whole series again, it’s been a couple of years. I also love the Walking Dead. Awesome show. Happy new year, I can’t wait to see what projects you do this year. Belly rubs for Egor from me!

Haha I think I wrote “rage” to that question and it accepted that as well. I actually don’t have the series on DVD. Though I practically know them all by heart, I also know that broadcast TV has been editing them over time and a lot of bits are missing – to squeeze in more commercials, I’m sure. Luckily, NETFLIX (man, do I love Netflix) has just acquired the entire series as of January 1st. I’m psyched to watch them all again in their unedited glory!

Love #10-I am kitty free right now but am sure one will adopt me again:) I too am a TWD fan and actually dream up episodes while sleeping when its between seasons. None of the regular charactors are in my dreams but I never get bitten and I am always skinny and can run!

Hello, fellow solo female house fixer-upper (I meant we’re female, not the houses, although who could say?) who also owns a fig tree that drives her nuts because she doesn’t eat figs . . . and by the way, the cold winter is giving our trees hell. That is what’s happening to your tree. After a mild winter, it will be as fertile as the Duggar family.

I’m reading through your blog now. Partly for courage. Partly for inspiration. Partly because it’s super-fun and totally beats getting my work done. But I am moved to contact this because I wondered if you’ve realize yet that your boy Jon Favreau often teams up to produce films with Peter Billingsley, who played Ralphie in A Christmas Story? (This fact might mean nothing to another person, but I’ve seen your Christmas lamp.) You can catch him doing cameos in a lot of Jon Favreau films. He’s quite handsome!

I actually recently went down the rabbit hole of internet sidebar articles and came across a “Where are they now” for A Christmas Story, so I actually did know that. I was glad to see Ralphie found success. (And did not shoot his eye out…)

Welcome to My Crappy House! This sledge hammer is actually very heavy, but I make holding it look easy because I am deceptively strong. Click on my pic to find out more about me and my crappy house.